jeremyjudd
Well-Known Member
Hi all,
I know there are multiple posts about this, and I've browsed FlyGuys recent post about this as well, but I'm still apparently missing something. I routinely am missing OG by 10-16 points.
Efficiency is in the low 60's%.
Was hoping I could list out my process and get some feedback about what I'm screwing up.
I'll use today's recipe as an example as it was par for the course...
Brewing a Dunkel, 10 lbs German Pils, 3/4 munich, 1/8 chocolate, 1/8 roast barley 350 and 2 oz of Perle Hops. According to calculator on tastybrew.com I should hit about 1.060.
I heated about 3.5 gallons of water to 168 degrees, to dough in, dropped all 11 lbs of grain in my cooler, gave everything a good stir, put a blanket on the cooler and waited 60 minutes. Temps were between 154 and 152 the whole hour.
After hour was up, I vorlauf (spelling? yeah, I have no idea...) the first few quarts back through and then run my grain bed down near empty, then add about 3.5 gallons of 170 degree water. I ran my mash out back through my grain bed a couple of times, based on some reading that this might help boost efficiency.
I collected just about 5 gallons even (grain absorbed a little more than I thought). So at this point, I cool off a sample of sweet wort and see that my gravity is at 1.044. (anyone have a faster way of cooling off a sample, hate this part).
So what's the deal here? Any suggestions?
Also, I see a lot of people pulling off a sample @ end of boil. Two questions about this: 1.) Does it matter? 2.) How do you correct for low efficiency post boil? I always do it pre-boil because that gives me the opportunity to throw in some dry malt to correct gravity.
Any tips or advice? It's not a big deal to correct for it with malt extract, I just would like to know what I'm doing wrong. Keep reading about efficiency in the 80's and would love to get there. I used to order everything from NorthernBrewer and recently switched to an LHBS locally, but my efficiency is still awful so assuming it's the "nut behind the wheel" so to speak as opposed to crush...
I know there are multiple posts about this, and I've browsed FlyGuys recent post about this as well, but I'm still apparently missing something. I routinely am missing OG by 10-16 points.
Efficiency is in the low 60's%.
Was hoping I could list out my process and get some feedback about what I'm screwing up.
I'll use today's recipe as an example as it was par for the course...
Brewing a Dunkel, 10 lbs German Pils, 3/4 munich, 1/8 chocolate, 1/8 roast barley 350 and 2 oz of Perle Hops. According to calculator on tastybrew.com I should hit about 1.060.
I heated about 3.5 gallons of water to 168 degrees, to dough in, dropped all 11 lbs of grain in my cooler, gave everything a good stir, put a blanket on the cooler and waited 60 minutes. Temps were between 154 and 152 the whole hour.
After hour was up, I vorlauf (spelling? yeah, I have no idea...) the first few quarts back through and then run my grain bed down near empty, then add about 3.5 gallons of 170 degree water. I ran my mash out back through my grain bed a couple of times, based on some reading that this might help boost efficiency.
I collected just about 5 gallons even (grain absorbed a little more than I thought). So at this point, I cool off a sample of sweet wort and see that my gravity is at 1.044. (anyone have a faster way of cooling off a sample, hate this part).
So what's the deal here? Any suggestions?
Also, I see a lot of people pulling off a sample @ end of boil. Two questions about this: 1.) Does it matter? 2.) How do you correct for low efficiency post boil? I always do it pre-boil because that gives me the opportunity to throw in some dry malt to correct gravity.
Any tips or advice? It's not a big deal to correct for it with malt extract, I just would like to know what I'm doing wrong. Keep reading about efficiency in the 80's and would love to get there. I used to order everything from NorthernBrewer and recently switched to an LHBS locally, but my efficiency is still awful so assuming it's the "nut behind the wheel" so to speak as opposed to crush...